Make that one or two decades. Maybe even three.Well, I can flex it. I've grown up with things being shut down and dismantled all around me and I've got a thing for closed airports, and Convairs were very popular at the old DEN, so Okay, that's admittedly a bit of a stretch.
Not quite sure what 'DEN' means but i think everybody gets to know about nostalgia sooner or later and when it concerns aviation particularly we can call ourselves blessed with a thing like 'flightsimulator'. I'm sure i'm not the only one that uses it mainly as a digital time machine.
By the way: I volunteer for an X-Plane conversion.
Once it flies in FSX/P3D be my quest, Bjoern.
lol - yes Jarvis, the prop hubs are not ideal...but overall the impression of a Convair c240 is pretty good.
Absolutely! Btw, it's Javis. I'm not a butler, you know.
My dad and I would sit at the east end of Lindberg Field RWY27 (1970-72) and he would call out each aircraft type as they landed and departed.
The filling shakers were the old 737 and 727 Boeing jets - we would roll the windows up when they loaded up on the throttle for takeoff.
Sounds great, H., literally and figuratively! I remember virtually landing at KSAN many times using real (expired) Jeppesen terminal charts and that a certain NDB approach for Rwy 27 was particularly beautiful and interesting. I don't do that no more... Quite sad if you think about, isn't it..
it was still early enough though that we would see Electra 188's (Lake Havasu and other regional lines) and some freight haulers in DC6's coming and going..there also was a Guppy that General Dynamics used to haul missile components in and out with occasionally
Never seen a Guppy for real ( Ok, sure, in my fishtank ) but i witnessed the transformation from propliners to turbopropliners ( Viscount, Electra, Friendship ) to jetliners (DC-8, 707) from close-up too of course. Didn't realize just yet i was witnessing the beginning of the end of the (IMHO) most beautiful era of air passenger transportation, both beautiful in sight and sound !
if you are interested in 240s and 340s this site has an extensive foto gallery of the worlds "busiest" airport from the good old days . lots of color fotos for the painters.
if my inset doesn't work the website is MIDWAY HISTORIANS. i lived 1100' off the end of 31L , as measured with google maps . those were the days.
https://www.midwayhistorians.com/Photos.html
Fantastic site, Budsch, thanks !
Some neat stuff about the CV-240 and up. KLM had 12 CV-240's and 14 CV-340's.
http://www.ruudleeuw.com/convair_tec.htm
Yes, i must've seen them all ! Thanks, Ted.
I'm almost sure i've seen that video before.... I remember feeling a bit sorry for this N3N, i mean he's no Slim Whitman, is he.... Resembles a bit Murphy's initial flight with the Duck, doesn't it..
Javis - before things started going to pot (no pun intended) in the late /60s on most Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights you could go to the approach end of the active runways at Detroit Metro-Wayne County airport (as it was called then) and join a crowd of maybe 100 or so folks who always showed up on those evenings to catch the incoming airliners on short final. It was a wonderful mix of DC-6s and -7, plus CV440s and 580s and a TON of jets passing overhead. The closest parallel is the spectator landing view at St Maarten's, although the ones we watched with such fascination were a little higher than that. The sheriff's dept didn't mind as long as we stayed well off the road and remained clear of the boundary fence.
I can easily imagine that must've been very exiting, SS101 ! That's a big airport, huh.. It resembles a bit my home airport Schiphol (EHAM) as it is now. Looks like there's a LOT of work going on there, atleast at the time the Google Maps car was driving around there...
If you drove just a few miles further you could do the same thing at Willow Run, the the view was more restricted to most propeller-driven aircraft. We saw cargo DC-6s and -7s, as well as the Convairs and the occasional C-46 flying for Zantop, who had a terminal there. There weren't that many cargo jets going in there at the time, to my memory.
Like you, I was around 10 or 11 and this left quite an impression on me.
Again, i can easily relate to that, SS101, you'd almost say 'those were the days', huh.... Today, here at Schiphol, there's still a 'promenade' for visitors to view the aircraft parked on the tarmac, slightly above it so you have a good view. But the difference between 'then and now' is just staggering. While you'd always be short of eyes to keep track of everything that was going on down there on the tarmac in the 1960's, today it's just a lot of round tubes connected to square tubes. That's about it. Move on..... Nothing to see here.... And let's not talk about the sounds...
In my book of 'Transport Fever' this goes the same for trains and ships, it seems only trucks that get more beautiful as years go by (European that is, America should stick to their old style Macks, Peterbuilds and Kenworths..
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cheers,
jan
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